A Murderer and a Seat Buddy

(If you are a child or under the age of 13 maturity wise please do not read this story as it might make you hurl)

A few days ago an interesting event happened on the beautiful island of Tanna. Maybe I should preface this story by saying that land disputes are quite common in Vanuatu. Most disputes in fact are related to land ownership. This story started out just like any other story...2 men fighting over who owned the land. But this wasn't just any land. This land has quite a few bee hives on it and brings in a bit of money through marketing the honey. These two men argued for several days over who owned the honey and who should win the money. It just became too much for one of the men so he decided to pick up his bush knife and go at it the hard way. He started by carving on the man's face and then moved to his hands. He cut both of his hands off. Just because that wasn't enough punishment he decided to strike one last time...and chopped the man's head off...and tossed it. The last part about the tossing is extremely important here according to most Ni-Vans (I don't know why..I guess chopping the nasty bloody head off and watching it fall to the ground isn't good enough so he had to get his hands even dirtier and pick it up and throw it...

I had to come to Vila for a medical encumbrance (thank you thesaurus.com)
yesterday. Just before boarding the plane I noticed a man in zip twisty hand cuffs (Vanuatu can't afford the real deal) being led to the plane with a police officer. I asked the ladies next to me who that was...they asked if I had heard the story of the murderer because that was him. I realize that on a large airplane these things wouldn't matter much but on a 15 passenger flight...well let's just say that you get to know each other's smells quite quickly. And our little murderer friend was sitting in the seat in front of me. I never thought I would be seat buddies with someone who decapitated a man. Only in Vanuatu.